I’m dumbstruck as to what to do. The US is building literal concentration camps, and none of my co-workers care at all.
In fairness, I work in healthcare with an almost exclusively cishet white population who are financially well off.
Many of them espouse to be Christians, and no one cares at all that the American government is following the exact playbook from Nazi Germany.
What do you do? How do you make people care before it’s too late?
I heard something on a radio show during Covid on how to talk to people who have “gone down the rabbit hole”. It was discussing MAGA as a cult. The guest on the show was a woman who was raised in a cult in the 70’s and she “got out” and spent her time talking with others in the cult to help them to break free. I can’t find a reference to the show, but I think it was Carrie Miller hosting.
My takeaway was that you can’t come at people and tell them that everything they know is wrong and you will show them the way. They’ll fight you. You need to deprogram them similarly to how they were programmed into the cult. Small bits, here and there to slowly guide them to questioning their beliefs. Once that happens, show them how to research and seek out information and let them know that they will be safe.
If someone found a link to the podcast/radio show, I’d be super happy.
This is as inspiring as it is terrifying.
Great comment. Trump won and the amount of people here throwing the Nazi word around still don’t realise how self defeating they are.
You can’t tell someone their an idiot or evil and then expect them to see things your way, you’re much more likely to end up entrenching their beliefs. The goal should be to win them over, not to tell them how wrong and stupid they are.
Engage, don’t alienate, no matter how hard that feels at times.
Trump won and the amount of people here throwing the Nazi word around still don’t realise how self defeating they are.
Sometimes you have to call Nazis Nazis. And people who support Nazis are Nazis. And sometimes you can’t deprogram a Nazi.
These aren’t victims. They’re intentionally malicious people.
I have the urge to help victims. I have another urge entirely in regards to Nazis.
The moderate right provide a platform for the far right but I don’t think that makes them default Nazi’s.
Besides that, I’m not suggesting that you can always deprogram a Nazi, but you can absolutely target the moderate right swing voters who may not take kindly to being called a Nazi.
Honestly, your point of view is no better than the “all Muslims are terrorists” mantra and people like you will sleep walk us in to another four years of Republican rule.
Yeah and especially when they created a system that doesn’t even allow you to really vote for somebody who you believe in.
The US is a timebomb which is going to explode.
They’re*
The thing is, a lot of these people are literally Nazis, and I’m starting to wonder if it was “people saying Nazi too much” or it was actually “there was a fuckton of Nazis and no one took people saying that seriously and now there’s Nazis around and people are blaming the folks who were warning others about the Nazis for not seeing Nazis soon enough”
Since we’re not in a .world comm, there were just a lot of fucking Nazis. The US has always been significantly further right wing than it’s contemporary nations, at least since the 1800s, but since the 1920s it basically accelerated to light speed. Every minor progressive victory was a half century or more after other countries, and immediately hated by more than half the country; hence why so many rights in the US are tenuous scotus decisions and not laws.
The rest of the world after the 1950s has viewed you guys as the next Nazis. Hell even in WW2 you were only the good guys by comparison, and even then the Soviets were the protagonists of that era with all their flaws.
Only very recently and only in aesthetics has the US really made any strides, and because you chose aesthetics over legislation that progress was easy to destroy. You had a far right wing black president people called progressive because of the color of his skin, you ‘legalized’ gay marriage without legislation, you had all other companies doing rainbow capitalism to show how open and progressive your society was, despite having the highest wealth inequality in the world – and that’s no easy feat, North Korea exists.
The fall of the US to fascism was inevitable, because both the ruling class and the majority populous has always fully supported fascism, they just hate the aesthetics.
The US was doomed from the start, it might have been better to let every state be it’s own country. We would probably see some wars with the more extreme places/states of the country.
People talking about people about concentration camps after Democrats have supported a genocide campaign in a concentration camp for more than a year.
You can tell OP does not believe any person outside of America is human.
I have just creeped this womans ENTIRE POST HISTORY back to the beginning and there is not SHIT to support this narrative you awful fucking little goblin. She has posted NOTHING that I saw even vaguely political (at a skim) to suggest she vocally supported the excesses of the IDF, sick inadequacy of the Biden administration, or anything except generic girl stuff. What the FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU. I am more of a regime whore than she is. Get a fucking grip .mls.
The fucks that left unity you assholes use to browbeat anarchists with?
To be frank I know this is a bad faith poster so I don’t value them or anything they have to say in response. This is what blocklists are for. I am pointing this dog shit out for the rest of you. WHAT IS THIS? Because it looks purposelessly cynical and divisive for the sake of keeping people down and tired. Almost state-actor like, if I may be so bold.
I did not check their post history.
I simply read the post and concluded if this is the point OP starts caring about concentration camps they have either been tuned out for the past 1.5 years or they need to rethink a lot of things.
You can tell OP does not believe any person outside of America is human.
You did a lot more than conclude they have either been tuned out or need to re-think some things, and you know it.
Get out of here with that "If you’re not vocally against every evil at all times… " bullshit. It’s got the same energy as injecting “but what about men?” into every conversation about women’s problems.
No. This is pointing out that there have been concentration camps and extermination for a year and a half and people have not cared for a year and a half.
Weird point to start noticing that people do not care.
Amen.
You do understand that it’s possible to oppose genocide on principle wherever it happens and to still be able think it’s alarming when it escalates further, right?
You are entirely missing the point.
Being surprised the average American is fully on board with concentration camps and genocide should not come as a surprise anymore.
I did not check their post history. I simply read the post and concluded if this is the point OP starts…
This is incredibly presumptuous reasoning in any context. Maybe be a little more careful throwing around accusations of genocide approval, eh, jackass? You don’t know them.
You could start by engaging and reaching out. For example, assuming someone doesn’t care because of their race, gender identity and job is kinda shitty. Maybe look into those internal biases.
The next part would be finding out how they are and will be effected by this new presidency. Sometimes people have a hard time caring about a problem if it doesn’t affect them directly. You might have to get to know your coworkers rather than make assumptions about them to learn this.
Being polite and nice to them also helps, no one wants to hear from someone who’s screaming at them.
exclusively cishet white population
Red State? Then don’t bother, nobody would care.
Look up the specific area around your workplace and trump’s margin of victory, and you’ll see just how fucked it is.
Preaching in a red area is a waste of time, I’m telling ya.
Counterpoint, I grew up in a smallish town in Idaho and was still absolutely surrounded by Democrats. State wide, only sixty percent of the voting age population actually turned out, and of those one out of every three people voted against Trump.
Hell, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in some countries and again, this is fucking Idaho.
This means that if you talk to an a Idahoan at random, there is a more than fifty percent chance they either largely already agree with you, or they are largely insulated from and not paying attention to politics and thusly susceptible to being swayed with the right approach and concrete examples of what Trumps doing to fuck them and their friends over specifically.
Left wing ideas and policy are still far more popular among the general public, which is why Republicans have to lie about them constantly.
Look for your local anarchist bookstore, look at what your counties Democrats actually organized, especially things like local pride events, show up, and network/make friends.
As is fun to note, there are more Democrats living in Texas than New York state, so the idea you should just give up on finding any around you because you live in a red state instead of one where the numbers are reversed is honestly rather absurd.
Lecturing others anonymously online isn’t exactly caring either.
I’m not lecturing, I’m asking for help on how to approach this. This is closer to frustrated bitching than lecturing.
I spend a good amount of energy trying to explain the merits of Marxism-Leninism and Leftism in general on Lemmy (and IRL, though that’s much trickier). Ultimately, you can’t make someone care. You can’t convince people of something they choose not to want to believe, either, no matter how much evidence you throw at them. Roderic Day wrote a great article titled Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing” that perfectly encapsulates this process. People license themselves to believe whatever it is that they believe benefits themselves, regardless of evidence or empathy.
What you can do, however, is explain the merits of that which you believe in, and this is far more effective with people already targeted by the current system. Those closest to the edge, those radicalized by their conditions but not yet organized or versed in theory, are the perfect people to talk to. The effort required to gain an ally in that sense is far less than someone who is convinced that the system is fine, but just needs a little tweaking. Building strength through organization helps legitimize your positions and expands the circle, so to speak, by moving the “line of radicalization” further. Person A, who believes the system is fine but needs tweaks, goes from comfortably mainstream into the new line of radicalization, one step away from working to supplant the system, when those who were radicalized near them organize.
Further still, as conditions deteriorate, more people are impacted and more people are radicalized. This is both good and bad, bad in the sense that more are affected by the evils in society to a greater degree, but with the good being further chance of organization.
Just my 2 cents as someone who has spoken with many different people about Marxism.
Thank you.
As someone in a similar environment, there are others who care. It just isn’t worth the risk to my job & professional relationships to talk about. Most people who don’t care I won’t sway anyways and anyone who does care doesn’t need to talk to me. So, for the betterment of my family, I stay quiet at work. Outside of work though I’ll talk to my friends & anyone who will listen about the risks of the current regime.
I wish I knew. People keep telling me to “organize” and “strike”. Like yeah a Walmart full of 60yo conservative white people is going to strike over this, fucking idiot.
How do you make people care before it’s too late?
none of my co-workers care
You can’t force another to care. We can educate them with facts and reason while trusting them to make their own choices. And, that isn’t done in a workplace, instead one on one with in presence of a human relationship.
But, if you insist, then there’s always a way. Read the Bible as part of a Bible study to develop a nuanced understanding of its message. Related that message to social democrat, socialist, communist, and anarchist ideology. Determine the relevant Bible passages useful in the specific situations you encounter with specific Christians, then memorize those passages. Then, in full context of Bible and situation, in the moment, quote the passage. Finally, shut up and wait.
To add to this, be sure to wait for the immediate pushback. Stay calm, and understand that this will be a slow burner. Kindness and repeated contacts to the change minds more than one off aggressive arguments.
People have a difficult time changing their points of view, and some people can feel lots of psychological pain during that process.
If you are trying to make them care or discuss it at work then that is where you are failing.
Very few people want to or are willing to discuss politics at work. Many will report it as harassing behavior and you run the risk of getting fired.
You need to talk to them outside of work.
This is correct. Leave this shit out of work. I agree with OP but I don’t want to talk about religion or politics at work.
Have you ever wondered how people reacted to the original Nazis in the 1930s? Well… now you know. If can feel proud of something, it is at least I am extremely against it and the whole ‘what would you have done?’ is basically answered definitively for me.
Not everything works out in life.
Suburban white trash thinks they won’t get hurt by this lol
They think they are on “the team”
But George Carlin called decades ago… There is a club and these idiots are too stupid to figure out they are not in it.
I think a better question is, how do we make our elected representatives care? (The answer, of course, is by not electing a**holes, but that’s not going to happen until people really start to suffer).
Don’t waste your energy on people who won’t listen.
Look for people, places and groups that support your own beliefs.
If you can’t find those people at work, then just be nice to them but not too close. Them in your free time, use your energy to support those people and groups you believe in.
Don’t waste your time on those who won’t listen.
What do you do when those people are your family?
Easier said than done (though recent events have made it a little easier).
Not impossible, look into cult deprogramming. My mother a few years back had a media diet of Steven Crowder and talking heads alike. She has very different views now. Her social life has improved, she dissects political news and generally became a more stable person.
Look for the helpers.
